Optimist or pessimist? The answer to this question is one that can define beauty in your life. The optimist props life up on a pedestal like someone stretching to set a priceless vase on a shelf just out of reach in order to admire its beauty in a state grandeur. The pessimist sets the priceless vase on the ground by the fireplace, resigning themselves to the fact that sooner or later the dog or one of their four hapless kids is going to break it, but each day its still intact its more and more beautiful.

This is how Louis CK in his critically acclaimed show Louie views the world. His brand of beauty comes in brief glimpses, buried in the absurdity and downright depressing realities of day to day life, and is fundamentally different from an optimist’s beauty. It’s a beauty of relief rather than of an ever-present state of life. It’s a beauty that Chuck Klosterman brings to light in his Grantland article, one that asks us to see the good in being a pessimist.